Optimist tips for grown-ups?

davidaprice

davidaprice

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This weekend our club has its annual gathering at our island harbour. This includes the "Small Ships Race", in which we borrow the juniors' optimist dinghies and race them around the nearby small island. It's one of those silly events that many secretly take very seriously - I know I've been practising! Do you have any useful tips?

I've already found the trick of heeling the boat when sailing downwind so that the gaff is vertical, so as to reduce wetted area. I'm told this is very popular with the spectators, on account of the number of resulting capsizes.

And I've got myself some knee-pads, since kneeling seems to be the only way for an adult to fit in the things!

Conditions look like being about 8-10 knots of wind, but the narrow channel next to the island has some notorious dead patches, and it seems that the races are won and lost there.

PS. Here's an old photo of the harbour; the island we'll race round is visible on the left:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/greygriffin/207963031/
 
Get the boat out of the water under cover and dry out if poss.Rub down and apply graphite type antifoul.Once sailing lie down to reduce windage could usefully wear a pro cycle spinters helmet.Take water pistol to harrass other contestants.....
 
Your enemy is weight and after that its drag. You can not do anything about the weight so minimise the drag caused by you moving about in the boat. Once it gets up to any speed, you being a relatively big lump for the Optimist, will easily kill off any speed by moving about. The time to regain that speed is what will loose the race. So stay still and dont fidget when sailing.
 
Nathan of these forums (now and then) bought one.....

_DSC6894.jpg
 
Make sure you keep the "bow" out of the water even at the expense of burying the stern. That flat plane is a pretty effective sea brake and downwind with a larger than normal driver they can submarine pretty spectacularly :eek: so that's two good reasons!
 
emsworthy said:
Make sure you keep the "bow" out of the water even at the expense of burying the stern. That flat plane is a pretty effective sea brake and downwind with a larger than normal driver they can submarine pretty spectacularly :eek: so that's two good reasons!
Click to expand...

I am not sure that I entirely agree, certainly when sailed by a normal weight crew the biggest killer of boat speed is to allow the transom to drag, we were always exhorting the kids to sit well forward to get the corner of the transom at water level. With an adult that may not be possible without immersing the bow but I would think a deeply immersed transom would be very slow.

John Morris's suggestion about sitting sideways is a good one.
 
I have bad knees and found I could only lie down head at the stern! Found I could get in a Topper by dangling legs over one side and head over the other!
 
1 Pull the centreboard up a fair bit when heading downwind (including a broad reach). Reduces drag.

2 Put your weight slightly (not to dig in the bow) when heading downwind.

3 Make your weight movements as small as possible.

4 Make sure that your sail is rigged as tight as possible.
 
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